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Georgia: Blogger action in support of evicted IDPs

Four months ago, on 11 October 2010, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who fled the wars over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia began to protest government indifference towards them. Tented in the yard of the Ministry of IDPs from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia, several IDPs have been demanding that the government halt evictions, which have so far seen over 80 families removed from temporary accommodation, and to provide them with proper housing.

However, not a single official has come to talk to them about these issues and their concerns that alternative accommodation offered by the government is located in villages isolated from regional centers and which lack proper schools and hospitals. Online publications such as EurasiaNet have already reported about conditions in such locations, noting that the new housing often lacks windows and basic amenities such as water, electricity and gas.

As a result, bloggers Besik Liparteliani and David Chikhladze have created a Facebook group called One night in a tent with IDPs, attracting 387 people in one week.

Every night approximately 3-5 bloggers stay in a tent with IDPs. They bring food, clothing and medicines with them, writing their impressions and posting them online when they return home.

It has been four months like this. They live roofless and don’t know when this will end. Sometimes they are very hungry while ministry employees pass by with food in their hands. They don’t have enough wood (to burn to warm themselves) and rain leaks into their tents while the Minister tells them “it’s okay, it’s not that cold a winter.”

For four months little information has been spread about this protest. The media doesn’t pay attention to it, despite the fact that there has been one fatality. Because of indifference from officials one woman burned herself in the yard of ministry and died 25 days later.

There’s an IDP who is disabled. He lost both legs in a war and another man has metal instead of bone in his leg (others say he wraps it in plastic bags and puts it in a handbag not to get it frozen at night). None of them are in a good condition, but some are worse [than others]. We found out at night that all the tents leak, they don’t have food, need items for personal care and hygiene, and wood (let’s help them with whatever we can).

It’s been several hours since we’ve arrived and the first thing I’ve noticed is the hopelessness. IDPs don’t believe that anybody cares about them. Everyday they see the cynical attitude displayed by the ministry employees (they say so) and they feel bad that the national media does not come to see them. We found out about them a couple of weeks ago, but they have been here for four months already. They don’t believe in human rights and international organizations either.

Meanwhile, it should be noted that in the fall of 2008 at a donor conference in Brussels $4.5 billion was raised, of which €74.5 million ($102.7 million) was earmarked for housing displaced persons. The European Commission also allocated €51 million ($70.3 million) in the summer of 2009 for the permanent housing of IDPs. (source). Amnesty International has also issued a statement urging the Georgian government to comply with international standards on eviction.

Global Voices will continue to cover the protest and updates will be posted shortly.